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Opposing life history strategies allow grass shrimp parasites to avoid a conflict of interest

  • Special Issue: Parasites in Aquatic Ecology
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Abstract

A conflict of interest occurs when parasites manipulate the behavior of their host in contradictory ways to achieve different goals. In grass shrimp (Palaemonetes pugio), trematode parasites that use shrimp as an intermediate host cause the shrimp to be more active than usual around predators, whereas bopyrid isopod parasites that use shrimp as a final host elicit the opposite response. Since these parasites are altering the host’s behavior in opposing directions, a conflict of interest would occur in co-infected shrimp. Natural selection should favor attempts to resolve this conflict through avoidance, killing, or sabotage. In a field survey of shrimp populations in four tidal creeks in the Cape Fear River, we found a significant negative association between the two parasites. Parasite abundance was negatively correlated in differently sized hosts, suggesting avoidance as a mechanism. Subsequent mortality experiments showed no evidence of early death of co-infected hosts. In behavior trials, co-infected shrimp did not show significantly different behavior from singly infected or uninfected shrimp, suggesting that neither parasite sabotages the manipulation of the other. Taken together, our results suggest that rather than sabotaging or killing one another, bopyrid and trematode parasites tend to infect differently sized hosts, thus avoiding a conflict and confirming the importance of testing assumptions in natural contexts.

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Data availability

The datasets used during the current study will be available on Dryad before publication.

Code availability

The code used during the current study will be available on Dryad before publication.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Victor Torres, Jocelyn Fifer, Griffin May, Cierra Benefield-Andrade, and Elias Mondragon for assistance collecting data, and Drs. Martin Posey and Zachary Long for comments on the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded through internal (UNCW) sources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Marine Science, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

    Robert P. Finn & Julia C. Buck

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  1. Robert P. Finn
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  2. Julia C. Buck
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Contributions

JCB originally formulated the idea. RPF developed methodology and conducted fieldwork. RPF and JCB collected and analyzed data. RPF wrote the first draft of the manuscript and JCB edited it.

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Correspondence to Robert P. Finn.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All applicable institutional and/or national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed according to internal IACUC protocol # A2021-018.

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Additional information

Communicated by Tara Merrill and Jason Hoverman.

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Finn, R.P., Buck, J.C. Opposing life history strategies allow grass shrimp parasites to avoid a conflict of interest. Oecologia 204, 365–376 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-024-05520-3

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